Shift

5. Max

"Why don't you go get him? He's your friend! You should support him. Not to mention the awkward..."

"Don't be an asshole, Maximo! It took me the best of one hour to convince him to come over. The Hospital is right on your way home, and this way I can make us dinner in the meantime."

I huffed loud enough for her to hear it through the phone, and glanced inside ForWheels' workshop. Jack, having just come back from his break, waved at me. I waved back.

"I sort of had plans, you know?"

Jack is, like, this mighty African god in coveralls - broad shoulders, lips like creamy chocolate, and that sort of deep voice that, every time he speaks, it makes me want to strip to my underwear and get inside his. And he just so happened to have asked me for beer after work. It didn't quite strike me as that kind of invitation - pretty sure he was just after some good old manly bonding. Yet, you'd be surprised at what the most straight of dudes is willing to try after a few drinks and the right company.

So, yeah, trading beer with godly Jack for picking up a grieving dinner guest wasn't exactly appealing to me right then.

"I hope it's something important," Delia sighed. "I'd hate to think that my little brother is heartless enough to go out for drinks or something, when he could be helping someone who's suffering."

I rolled my eyes. Delia did take to our father.

The full extent of my exasperation must have shown in my face, because Jack gave me a sympathetic smile behind the hood of the car he was working on. His teeth were fucking perfect. I just wanted to have him lie across that hood without those green coveralls on.

Damn my sister to hell.

"Fine, I'll go."

Aiden was a wreck.

No, scratch that, Aiden was a mess. The guy on the bed was a wreck. His face was all swollen and purple, his head was bandaged and he had some kind of contraption strapped to the lower half of his face, with a tube connected to it. He had tubes and wires going everywhere, really.

Sitting on the bedside chair, Aiden stared blank-faced at him, huge bags under his eyes from being awake for forty-eight hours straight.

"How is he?"

Aiden raised his eyes to me. I'm not sure he even recognized me at first. Certainly, nothing in his expression spoke of recognition. Then again, his expression didn't really speak of anything right then and there. He looked back at John and grabbed his hand.

"Stable."

I never quite got why the doctors keep insisting on this 'stable' thing, as if it isn't so bad. The guy was in a coma and was staying in a coma for the time being. It was pretty bad.

"So... I'll be right outside, whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready." Aiden stood up, with a swiftness I didn't imagine him capable of, the way he looked like. "Let me just..."

He approached John and kissed his forehead, then brought his lips to John's ear and whispered something. I lowered my eyes, feeling like an intruder.

Feeling other stuff as well. There was glaring affection in the gesture, the kind I'm used to associate with family instead of lovers. To earn something like that, from someone like Aiden, without being related to them... Suddenly, I was wondering what this guy John had that I didn't, but made a quick mental jump out of that place. Even I recognized, in spite of my healthy self-esteem, that that particular list was just too long.